On March 17th, 2025 Mrs. Leonard’s AP psychology class got a hands-on assignment of designing an egg, choosing a parenting style, and then carrying it out for 7 days.
Each egg had to have a name, and some kind of carrier that was to be decorated while still keeping your egg safe from cracking, or breaking.
You could also decorate your egg by adding special touches to enhance its personality such as hair, eyes,clothing, and accessories.
Another responsibility of the assignment was creating a journal that you could answer questions with either an authoritative, authoritarian or permissive parenting style.
The majority of the class chose to raise, and answer the questions as an authoritarian parent. This was because this parenting style was more middle ground between being super lenient, and strict. It sets rules, and enforces them but also allows input. It also had better impacts on the child’s self esteem and social competence.
There was 7 stages that the eggs would go through which were: Day 1- Newborn (Birth-12 months), Day 2- Baby/Toddler (12-18 months), Day 3- Toddler (18 months- 3 years), Day 4-Preschool (3-5 years), Day 5- Grade school (5-12 years), Day 6- Junior High (13-15 years), and finally Day 7- High School (15-18 years)
Each day students were given a scenario and had to answer it based on their parenting style, and the egg’s age.
In class, “Egg Roll” was taken each morning meaning the egg baby was to attend school with us every day. If your egg had many absences, it was noted by Mrs. Leonard. There was also a “daycare” offered to us egg parents if we didn’t want to carry it around for the day.
Many people had their egg break during this process, and if that happened we were to clean it up just as if it was a real child, and we had to clean up its own personal mess.
At the end of the week, on March 21st, there was an Egg pageant. Where teacher Mrs. Dooley and Mr. Finnigan came in and picked the best-decorated egg. Three winners were chosen. First, second, and third place. With each student receiving extra credit.
Overall, this assignment has always been a hit for the psychology class. It gets student’s engaged and allows them to practice what they have learned from Unit 3 of the class.
